Sabre-rattling over Russian ships near the UK is misleading the public
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Reports about Russian ships being intercepted by the Royal Navy are missing something very important: the law.
Here’s the latest incident, as reported by the BBC:
“Two Russian warships were intercepted in the English Channel by the Royal Navy, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.
“In the latest incident involving Russia’s ships entering waters around the UK, HMS Severn headed off the RFN Stoikiy, a corvette and Yelnya, a tanker, as they sailed west through the Dover Strait into the English Channel in the past fortnight.
“Last week, it emerged that the Russian spy ship Yantar was spotted off the coast of Scotland and it used lasers to disrupt RAF pilots tracking its movements.”
The reporting makes it seem these Russian warships were somewhere they didn’t belong – but the facts do not bear this out.
These ships were in international waters and had every right to be there.
Here’s what you aren’t being told…
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Nathan Gill shows us Reform UK’s popularity is all about protest – and there are better options
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Why is Reform UK on line to form the next government when things like this happen?
Here are the details, as described by the BBC:
“Nathan Gill, the disgraced former leader of [Reform UK] in Wales… received a 10-and-a-half year [prison] sentence on 21 November after admitting to taking around £40,000 in bribes for pro-Russia interviews and speeches.
“Reform UK head of policy Zia Yusuf… said that he had never met Gill, and all he knew of him was what he had read in the newspapers, saying his actions should not “besmirch” Reform UK.
“It comes after the Prime Minister Keir Starmer challenged Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to set up an investigation into Reform UK’s Russian links.”
The issue here is that Nathan Gill is only the latest in a long line of Reform representatives who have been caught in wrongdoing.
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Other high-profile cases include:
Rupert Lowe, who was suspended due to allegations including bullying in his Parliamentary office and making verbal threats of violence against then-party chair Yusuf. The Metropolitan Police opened a probe into the threat allegations.
James McMurdock, former Reform UK MP for South Basildon & East Thurrock, is under investigation (at the time of writing) for allegations relating to Covid-19 bounce back loans.
Craig Campbell, the party’s former Scotland organiser, was sacked due to familial links with loyalist paramilitaries (his father and uncle were jailed members of the UVF) and for posting inflammatory material on social media.
Multiple Reform UK members of Kent County Council have been expelled or suspended for “bringing the party into disrepute” or “dishonest and deceptive behaviour.”
And Shropshire Cllr Donna Edmunds was suspended under allegations that she planned to defect to another right-wing party, and there are claims about far-right/Islamophobic content among Reform councillors more broadly.
Some of these are very serious criminal cases (Gill, McMurdock); others are internal party misconduct (councillors), or reputational issues (paramilitary links).
But they are not isolated incidents – the fact that these are multiple people across different levels (MPs, councillors, organisers) suggests there is a pattern of problematic figures.
These cases raise real questions about Reform UK’s candidate-selection procedures and internal governance. If a party is projecting itself as disciplined and principled, repeated scandals undermine that.
For voters, these are more than PR problems; they could indicate systemic risks around judgement, foreign influence, or ethical oversight.
The key issue here is not that Reform UK is suddenly seen as “trustworthy” or competent — it isn’t, as the Nathan Gill case makes glaringly obvious.
No – Reform UK’s appeal to voters is largely protest-driven. Let me break it down clearly:
Protest voting drives their momentum: Reform UK often benefits when voters are frustrated with the mainstream parties (Labour and the Conservatives).
People may feel “none of the above” represents their interests, so they use Reform UK to send a message.
This is a classic case of a party riding the wave of dissatisfaction, not merit.
High-profile scandals don’t always hurt protest parties immediately: Parties like Reform UK can survive scandals that would sink mainstream parties because many of their voters don’t actually vote for competence or integrity.
It’s anti-establishment sentiment that fuels their rise, not trust in their leadership.
Reform UK has media visibility and strong personalities: Figures like Nigel Farage give the party a recognizable face, even if controversies swirl around it.
Farage’s own history with Russia Today or Brexit-related controversies doesn’t necessarily deter the anti-mainstream voter — it may even reinforce the sense that he’s “outside the system” and therefore different.
Mainstream parties are failing to offer alternatives: When Labour or the Tories are seen as incompetent, self-serving, or disconnected from voters’ immediate concerns (like the cost of living, immigration, or national identity), the electorate looks elsewhere.
Reform UK positions itself as the “disruptor” and can absorb protest votes, even if its actual platform or leadership track record is shaky.
What we are observing is a classic protest-party effect.
It doesn’t mean Reform UK is inherently trustworthy or capable of governing; it’s simply the outlet for voter anger.
From This Writer’s point of view as an observer, the Greens and Your Party should take note – because the prize is there for the taking, it seems.
Any party that can convincingly position itself as both a credible alternative and a principled option stands to pick up that same wave of protest votes — but with the added advantage of actually being trustworthy and policy-driven.
Reform UK’s rise is more about dissatisfaction with the system than admiration for their record.
Or am I mistaken?
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Rail fares in England will be frozen – but it could have been done before. Here’s why it wasn’t
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Rail fares in England will be frozen in January, for the first time in 30 years – but the big question is: why didn’t the government do it before?
If you think the answer has anything to do with rail re-nationalisation – you’re mistaken!
Here’s the BBC:
“Rail fares in England are to be frozen next year for the first time in 30 years, the government has announced.
“The freeze until March 2027 will apply to regulated fares, which includes season tickets and off-peak returns.
“The most recent fare rise, in March 2025, was 4.6%. Rail fares traditionally have gone up in January, based on the July rate of the retail price index (RPI) + 1% – although this formula has not always been followed. Since 2021, the annual increase has come in March instead of January.
“About 45% of rail fares are regulated by the government in England, Wales and Scotland – but the freeze only relates to travel in England. The announcement also only applies to services run by England-based train operating companies.
“The transport secretary said it was part of “wider plans to rebuild Great British Railways”.
“Great British Railways is a public body which is in the process of being set up, and is part of the government’s plans to bring parts of the railway system into public ownership.”
The part about Great British Railways is, in fact, irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the reason the government can freeze rail fares.
Would you like to know the real reason it can?
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Pollster offers four choices to replace Starmer – but NONE of them have Labour values
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A new opinion poll has suggested four possible replacements for Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour Party – but there’s one big problem: none of them offer any hope of returning to the values that made the party great – and that it has abandoned.
Here’s The Guardian:
“Andy Burnham, Ed Miliband, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting would all win a head-to-head leadership contest against Keir Starmer, according to a poll of Labour members.
“Research conducted by Survation for LabourList found that Burnham and Rayner would defeat the prime minister by considerable margins, while Streeting and Miliband would have a slight advantage but within the margin of error.
“The poll also found 54% of members said there should be a new Labour leader in place before the next general election. And 41% of those who backed Starmer for the leadership in 2020 said a new leader should be in place, with 40% wanting him to stay.”
There’s one simple fault in the poll, and the philosophy behind it: it does not question whether any of the proposed replacements would actually represent the politics of most Labour Party members.
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Are innocent people paying the price because Palestine Action’s ban is based on secrets?
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Even people inside the Home Office are worried the government has seriously overreached with its ban on Palestine Action.
According to The Guardian, a member of the Home Office’s own homeland security group has warned that proscribing the direct-action network is already generating confusion, wrongful referrals and the risk of innocent people being criminalised simply for engaging in Palestine advocacy.
This official works closely with Prevent – the anti-terrorism scheme that has become notorious for hauling in schoolchildren for drawing pictures, questioning university students over reading lists, and generally encouraging overreaction wherever frontline workers fear being blamed for not reporting something.
Now, because supporting Palestine Action is suddenly a terrorism offence, teachers, NHS staff, local authorities and counter-terrorism officers are reportedly unsure whether they must refer people for simply voicing views about Palestine – even if they have nothing to do with the proscribed group.
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The warning could hardly be sharper: Prevent, which is already under what the official calls “unprecedented” pressure after the Southport attacks, risks being “overwhelmed”. And that is before the legal challenge to the ban has even been heard.
The most troubling aspect of all this is the one The Guardian’s report only touches indirectly: the government has justified the proscription of Palestine Action using secret evidence.
Ministers have said they relied on intelligence they cannot disclose, meaning the public – and even many Parliamentarians – have no way of assessing whether the ban is proportionate, necessary or even credible.
That is the core democratic deficit. If the government can criminalise an entire protest movement on the basis of information that cannot be examined, challenged or even understood, then nobody outside Whitehall has any reason to believe the ban is legitimate.
It becomes a matter of trust – and trust is precisely what the Home Office official says has already been damaged.
Once a group is proscribed, mere support becomes a terrorism offence.
Yet the state is refusing to show the evidence that turned those actions into crimes.
That is why this Homeland Security Group official’s concern matters so much: Prevent referrals, wrongful arrests, and the criminalisation of people engaged in general Palestine advocacy all stem from a decision whose justification is hidden from the public.
Combine those factors and the picture becomes even more alarming. You have:
- a ban based on undisclosed intelligence;
- frontline confusion about what is lawful;
- rising Prevent referrals and strained resources;
- young people at risk of being treated as terrorism suspects for comments they may not realise now carry criminal weight; and
- a counter-terrorism framework losing credibility even among those who operate it.
In short: secret evidence has allowed the government to create a new category of “terrorist” overnight, and even its own officials are warning that the consequences are spiralling beyond control.
It fits the wider pattern. David Anderson KC, the independent Prevent reviewer, told the Lords that the government’s move means anyone “young and foolish enough” to say Palestine Action “has its heart in the right place” could be prosecuted as a terrorist.
That is an extraordinary threshold – effectively criminalising political opinion, not conduct. The Thought Police are no longer a science fiction concept – they have arrived in force.
The Home Office, of course, responded with the familiar line that supporting Palestine is lawful. But the warning from inside its own walls is that this distinction is already being lost in practice, and young people in particular could be dragged into counter-terrorism systems without understanding that an overnight change in the law has turned a slogan, a share or a careless comment into an imprisonable offence.
And the sting in the tail: according to the official, the ban has damaged trust in government and in Prevent itself, making vital counter-terrorism work harder, not easier.
In other words, this is exactly what critics predicted: by trying to crush a disruptive protest group, ministers may have compromised their own security apparatus, muddied the legal landscape, and created yet another pathway for innocent people to be watched, reported or criminalised.
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